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There’s now a maple syrup that was made on Kelleys Island

CFAES’ Buckeye Yard & Garden onLine website recently told the story of a new project on Kelleys Island, which lies in western Lake Erie. Two CFAES educators, Thomas deHaas and Les Ober, were among the project’s collaborators, and in the end the team’s work all boiled down to a first: the first-ever run of Kelleys Island “Glacially Groovy” maple syrup. (Photo: A shoreline scene on Kelleys Island, Getty Images.)

How to have water for everyone in Ohio

“Clean water is the backbone to any great society. You’re not going to have healthy humans without it. You’re not going to have a healthy economy without it. You’re not going to have a healthy environment without it.”

So begins “… And Water for All,” a documentary film that premiered on March 22, World Water Day, at a program hosted by CFAES’ Environmental Professionals Network.

Written and directed by Ramiro Berardo, associate professor of environmental policy in the CFAES School of Environment and Natural Resources, the film explores issues around water in Ohio:

  • how we can’t live without it;
  • the threats around it (interviews include Toledoans who experienced their city’s 2014 water crisis); and
  • the rebuilding needed—of public water systems, of public trust—to provide affordable, safe water for every Ohioan.

Watch “… And Water for All” (55:41) for free on YouTube above.

Take your raised garden beds even higher

If your soil is dodgy, if your space is tight, raised beds offer a great way to grow—for lettuce, peppers, and other vegetables, to be sure, and also for herbs and flowers. You can get how-to tips from CFAES experts on what to grow and how to do it in A Complete Approach to Raised Bed Gardening (28 pp., $7.50), available from OSU Extension Publications.

Pickin’ up good vibrations on the prairie

“Although we think of restoration as a science, it’s also about creativity. Prairie restoration begins with a vision. The dream of how the land might be healed, imagined in the mind of a steward or site manager.” So writes author Cindy Crosby in Tallgrass Conversations: In Search of the Prairie Spirit.

On Tuesday, June 14, prairie restoration—and the use of creativity and imagination in the process—will be the focus of a field trip hosted by CFAES’ Environmental Professionals Network. Titled “If You Listen Carefully, It Sounds Like Love,” the event, its website says, will be “a celebration of beauty in the sounds of nine Ohio prairie seeds”—including wild bergamot, big bluestem, little bluestem, dogbane, and milkweed—“and the steps we can take as a bioregional community to help them thrive again.”

Continue reading →

CFAES sustainability news, May 17, 2022

Science, May 16, 2022; featuring Rattan Lal, School of Environment and Natural Resources

Yale E360, May 10, 2022; featuring Joyce Chen, Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics

Phys.org, May 8, 2022; featuring Justin Chaffin, Stone Lab

And which maples would those be?

“While sugar maple is considered ‘the’ tree to tap for syrup, there are also other maples you can tap.” 

Those are the words of Kathy Smith, forestry program director for the CFAES School of Environment and Natural Resources. She’s one of the organizers of our upcoming Maple Bootcamp, which will let you know which maples those are, along with a whole lot more.